Speaking Skills Flashcards
Study Session 3 SPEAKING SKILLS II:
THE SYLLABLE, STRESS AND INTONATION
3
INTRODUCTION
In this study session, you will be introduced to other aspects of English pronunciation beyond the segmental sounds. Often, when we combine these consonant and vowel sounds (i.e. segmentals), we form a larger unit of pronunciation known as the syllable. At the level of the syllable and beyond, a number of pronunciation features also apply. These features which include stress and intonation are known as suprasegmentalsbecause they are beyond the segments but still require them to function. Because these features are essential to English pronunciation and the intelligibility of every English speech, you are required to pay close attention to this session to
see how they constitute the basic distinguishing features of English pronunciation.
Learning Outcome for Study Session 3
At the end of this study session, you should be able to:
3.1 Describe the structure of the English syllable (SAQ3.1)
3.2 Differentiate between syllable structures that are acceptable in English and those that are not (SAQ3.2)
3.3 Discuss the perceptual qualities of a stressed syllable (SAQ3.3)
3.4 Distinguish approaches to stress prediction one from another (SAQ3.4)
3.5 Identify the uses of the different intonation tunes (SAQ3.5).
3.1 The Syllable in English:
How many syllables are there in the word ‘education’? Of course, they are four. You must however note that although a syllable is very easy to identify, it is fairly difficult to define. In simple terms, a syllable is a distinct group of sounds that can be pronounced in one moment of uninterrupted breath. It usually consists of a vowel which may be preceded or followed by one or
more consonants. Phoneticians have put forward some theories to help with the definition of the
syllable. There are two main such phonetic theories of syllable description. They are the Chest Pulse Theory and the Prominence Theory.
(a)The Chest Pulse Theory: This theory claims that the syllable is equivalent to a single puff of air by the intercostal muscles of the chest cavity.
(b)The Prominence Theory: This theory claims that the syllable is the most prominent, relatively loudest or most sonorous sound in a phonetic environment.
Phonetically, therefore,syllables are usually described as consisting of a centre which is characterized by little or no obstruction to airflow and which has elements which are characterised by relative loudness (a major feature of vowels in English). This centre is preceded and followed by greater obstruction to airflow and/or characterized by less loudness (a characteristic of consonants).
However, besides the phonetic approach,the syllable can also be defined phonologically. This basically involves looking at the possible combinations of English phonemes in constituting syllables. In this regard, syllables are made up of three parts – the onset, the peak and the coda. The onset includes all the consonants preceding the vowel. The peak is the vowel itself while the coda includes all the consonants after the vowel. The onset and the coda, which are made up of consonants, are optional while the peak, which usually contains a vowel, is the compulsory constituent. The structure of the English syllable is summarised in the formula: C0-3VC0-4where C stands for consonant and V stands for vowel.
The formula shows that a syllable can have an onset of no consonant at all up to 3 consonants; an obligatory peak, which is usually avowel, and a coda of no consonant at all up to 4 consonants. Let us look at the followingexamples:
V (vowel only) e.g., I /aɪ/,eye /aɪ/,oh /əʊ/
CV (consonant + vowel) e.g., boy /bɔɪ/, no /nəʊ/ VC (vowel + consonant) e.g., in /ɪn/; up /ʌp/
CVC (consonant + vowel + consonant) e.g., pick /pɪk/; sock /sɒk/ CCV (consonant + consonant + vowel) e.g., slow / sləʊ/; glue /glu:/
CCVC(2 consonants + vowel + consonant) e.g., prayed /preɪd/, glued /glu:d/
CCVCC (2 consonants + vowel + 2 consonants) e.g., prank / præŋk/, cracked /krækt/ CCCV (3 consonants + vowel) e.g., spree /spri:/; straw /strɔ:/
CCCVC (3 consonants + vowel + consonant) e.g., stretch /strɛtʃ/
CCCVCC (3 consonants + vowel + 2 consonants) e.g., sprint /sprɪnt/
CVCCCC (consonant + vowel + 4 consonants) e.g., waltzed /wɒltzd/
CCCVCCCC (3 consonants + vowel + 4 consonants) e.g., strengths /streŋkɵs/
Note the following about the English syllable:
1. Two or more consonants which occur either at the beginning or end of a syllable without an intervening vowel make aconsonant cluster, e.g., spray /spreɪ/, street /stri:t/, tasks
/tæsks/, bagged /bægd/.
2. English syllables are also classified as closed (with coda or final consonant) and open (without coda or final consonant) e.g., ‘slow’ /sləʊ/, tea /ti:/ (open syllables); slap /slæp/, tag /tæg/ (closed syllables).
3. When a syllable is made up of a single sound preceded and followed by silence, it is known as a minimal syllable. This includes those made up of only the vowel (peak) element as in our examples above (e.g. are /ɑ:/, or /ɔ:/, and err /ɜ:/); consonant sounds like /m/, often said to indicate agreement, and /∫/, used to ask for silence. However, the dominant single sound of English which constitutes a syllable is the schwa /ə/ which occurs in many words as an unstressed vowel, as in about /əbaʊt/, around /əraʊnd/, amiss
/əmɪs/, etc.
4. There are restrictions on the (co)occurrence of some consonants in the onset and coda positions. For example, while /ŋ/ and /ʒ/ do not occur in the onset position, /h/, /r/,
/w/ and /j/ do not occur in the coda position. A three consonant onset always has /s/ as the first consonant, /p/, /t/ or /k/ as the second and /l/, /r/, /w/ or /j/ as the third
e.g. strike /straɪk/, square /skwɛə/, stew /stju:/ sprite /spraɪt/. Any three consonant onset with a structure that does not comply with the above will be considered deviant and
unacceptable in English words.
Q: An average English syllable contains a compulsory constituent made upof one of the following:
a. vowel b. consonant c. schwa d. pause
A: a (a vowel). An average English syllable contains a compulsory constituent made up of a
vowel.
3.2: Stress in English:
Did you notice that all the syllables in an English word are not produced with equal breath-force? Did you also notice that they do not have equal prominence when you hear them pronounced? That feature which makes one syllable more prominent than the others or which causes you to produce a particular syllable with an additional breath force is what we call Stress in English. It generally involves the relative degree of prominence of one syllable over other syllables in a given word. The nature of stress is thus quite simple in the sense that a stressed syllable is easily discernible in practical terms. Thus, we can easily tell that the first syllable is stressed in words like reason, message, and janitor; the second syllable is stressed in announcer, intention, and creation;while the final syllable is stressed in record (verb), aggrieved, and relent.Stress is therefore defined as the relative force of articulation or degree of auditory prominence of one syllable over others in a polysyllabic word (Awonusi, 2009).
From our introduction, you must have observed that stress can be studied from two perspectives.The first is the point of view of production where we consider what the speaker does in producing stressed syllables. Here, the production of stressed syllables is generally believed to depend on the speaker’s use of more muscular energy than is used in producing unstressed syllables. The second way of looking at stress in English is the point of view of perception. In this regard, all stressed syllables are said to have one characteristic in common: prominence. Stressed syllables are thus recognized on account of having more prominence than unstressed syllables. According to Roach (1991:86), the prominence of a syllable depends on four factors: loudness, length, pitch and quality.
Loudnessis a component of prominence, thus it is generally assumed that stressed syllables are louder than unstressed ones.Length also has an important part to play in prominence. If one of the syllables in the word announcer is made longer than the others, there is a strong possibility that such a syllable will be perceived as being stressed.Pitch refers to the rise and fall of the tone of the voice which is usually expressed as pitch levels. Every syllable is said on some pitch, and pitch is closely related to the frequency of vocal cord vibration, something similar to the musical notion of high- and low-pitched notes. The more taut the vocal cords, the faster they vibrate and the higher the pitch of the perceived sound. Therefore in a word like antecedent, if one syllableis said with a pitch that is noticeably higher than that of other syllables, such a distinction will have a strong tendency to produce a prominence effect. Stressed syllables tend to have higher pitch and longer duration than their unstressed counterparts. In the word an.TE.ce.denttherefore, the second syllable is stressed on account of its high-pitch quality.
Vowel quality also accounts for syllable prominence in the sense that if the syllable contains a vowel that is different in quality from other neighbouring vowels in the same word, then prominence is established for that syllable. Therefore the syllable with a strong vowel quality
will tend to be stressed. Most syllables which contain ‘strong’ vowels (e.g. /i:/,/з:/,/ɑ:/, /u:/ and
/ɔ:/) as well as diphthongs and triphthongs (in comparison with vowels commonly found in weak syllables such as /ə/, /ɪ/ and /ʊ/) are thus usually stressed as shown in the following examples:
aBOUT /əbaʊt/ rePORT /rɪpɔ:t/ reUnion /rɪju:nɪən/FURther
/fɜ:ðə/ anNOYance/ənɔɪəns/ TEAcher /ti:ʧə/
The four factors discussed above generally work in combination, but prominence sometimes manifests by means of only one or two of them. Some phonologists have actually argued that these factors are not equally important, since experiments have shown that pitch usually produces the strongest effect on stress placement than all the others.
Stress placement is shown through the convention of placing a mark (‘) at the beginning of the
stressed syllable or by capitalizing the letters of the stressed syllable as in the following examples:
‘rebel REbel
ac’count
SUNday
‘regulate
‘nation NAtion bi’noculars biNOculars pro’tectionproTECtion
3.2.1 The Syllable and Stress:
Stress is often described in relation to the syllable. The relationship between thesetwois highlighted in the following observations:
(a) A syllable is said to be stressed or accented if it is pronounced with greater energy or breath force while it is said to be unstressed or unaccented if it is not accompanied by great energy or breath force.
(b) When a syllable is stressed, it becomes more prominent than other sounds in the same environment.
(c) Word stress operates on English words with more than one syllable. The schwa /ə/ and
syllabic consonants /l, m, n/ usually occur in unaccented or unstressed syllables, e.g., about, bottle, cotton.
3.2.2 Levels of Stress:
Three levels or degrees of stress are recognised in English polysyllabic words. They are: primary stress, secondary stress and zero stress (which refers to unstressed syllables). Primarystress (marked witha raised vertical stroke or superscript ‘’’)can be described as the prominence which
results from pitch movement within a word, which produces the strongest type of stress as in the
examples: withDRAWal, condemNAtion, POSTman, toGEther, inviTAtion, CLASSroom. When a syllable is pronounced in a way that gives it more prominence than others, such a syllable is said to have primarystress.
However, some words exhibit an additional type of stress which is weaker than primary stress but stronger than an unstressed syllable. This is known as secondary stressand is marked with a subscript (ˌ).This kind of stress is found in the first syllables of the words millionaire/ˌmiljə’nɛə/ andcigarette /ˌsɪgə’rɛt/; and second syllables of congratulation /kənˌgrætjʊ’leɪʃən/and responsibility /rɪˌspɒntsɪ’bɪlɪti/ each of which was the stress-bearing syllable before the addition of the stress–moving affix in the word (see 3.2.3. (c)below).You must have noticed that in our examples, while primary stress is indicated in transcription with (‘), secondary stress is indicated with (ˌ) at the beginning of the affected syllable.
We also have unstressed syllables which generally contain weak vowels. The unstressed syllable is regarded as signalling the absence of any recognizable amount of prominence. Examples are the first syllables of retain, opinion, again; the middle syllables of intimate, interesting, custody; the final syllables of flavour, mother, candour and the first and final syllables of arrival, approval, denial, etc. In longer words, there is often just one primarily stressed syllable, another
secondarily stressed syllableand several other unstressed ones.
3.2.3 Predicting Stress:
So far, we have observed that stress can fall on any syllable – first, second, third or last. How then can we determine the correct position of stress in a word? Many English pronunciation texts contend that there are no rules determining which syllable in a polysyllabic word should carry stress. This is simply because English stress is free, unlike some other languages where stress is fixed. Thus most foreign learners generally learn stress placement on words on an individual basis. However, a few parameters can be used to predict stress placement on some English words:
(a) Phonological Criterion:
This involves a consideration of the phonological structure of the word i.e. considering the number of syllables in the word and their internal constitution.We have previously established that most unstressed syllables in English are those which contain the schwa and the high close front and high close back vowels (/ə/, /ɪ/ and /ʊ/). These are otherwise known as weak syllables. Conversely, stressed syllables are those which contain long vowels, diphthongs, triphthongs or consonant clusters. They are usually stressed because they are strong syllables. Where a word contains more than one strong vowel, the stronger vowel is assigned primary stress while the
other carries secondary stress. Generally, there are many phonological rules which specify stress
patterns for nouns, verbs and adjectives in terms of the quality of the vowel they contain. Some of these stress placement rules that are based on the phonological structure of words are highlighted below:
i. In disyllabic nouns, if the final or second syllable has a short vowel, it is not stressed; instead, stress goes to the first or initial syllable, e.g., TIcket, ASset, PREmise, FOcus, MOney, PIDgin, TODdler.
ii. Conversely, if the second or final syllable contains a long vowel or diphthong, that final syllable is stressed e.g. esTATE, baLOON, canTEEN, maCHINE, rouTINE.
iii. In trisyllabic nouns, a final (ultimate) syllable with a short vowel or the diphthong /əʊ/ does not attract stress, e.g., toMOrrow, anNOUNCEment, reJOINder, acCEPTance.
iv. In trisyllabic nouns, if the second (or penultimate) syllable has a long vowel or a diphthong other than /əʊ/, or has a consonant cluster coda, then it is stressed e.g. poTAto, syNOPsis, diSASter, torNAdo, arRIval, conjunction.
v. Disyllabic adjectives with open final syllables or consonant cluster coda on the final syllable have stress assigned to that syllable, e.g., seVERE, corRECT, diRECT, adHERE, aGHAST.
vi. In trisyllabic verbs, if the third or final syllable has a short vowel or a one-consonant coda,
then stress is assigned to the second (penultimate) syllable, e.g., enCOUNTer, imPREGnate, maRAUder,conSIder, soLIcit.
(b) Syntactic Criterion:
Following this criterion, the main consideration in assigning stress to a word is its word class or membership of a particular part of speech. For instance, there are a number of noun-verb and noun-adjective pairs of words where stress placement signals the syntactic category. In this instance, if the word is a noun, it carries primary stress on the first syllable and if it is a verb, the primary stress falls on the second syllable. Examples:
EXport (N) exPORT (V)
REcord (N) reCORD (V)
ABStract (N) absTRACT (V)
REcord (N) reCORD(V)
AUgust (N) auGUST (Adj)
PREsent (Adj) preSENT (V)
Although this criterion appears fairly simple and reliable, you must note that there are also a number of exceptions to the rule. In the following words, for instance, the same stress pattern applies to more than one word class:
PREsent (N/Adj) INterest (N/V)
CHALlenge (N/V) miSTAKE (N/V)
COMfort (N/V) reSPECT (N/V)
HARvest (N/V) adVICE (N), adVISE (V)
Stress placement is also fairly predictable when we make a distinction between compound nouns and noun phrases in English. In a compound noun, two or more words combine to form a new word whose meaning may or may not be related to the meaning of the individual words (e.g. Facebook). In noun phrases, on the other hand, the first element modifies or says something about the second. Consider the following examples: The compound noun GREENhouse means ‘a building with a roof and sides made of glass, used for growing plants that need warmth and protection’ while the noun phrase a green HOUSE simply means ‘a house that is green’. Other
examples are:
